Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs, Case Histories) was driving one night, his wife and son with him in the car. For reasons unknown the car goes off a cliff and crashes. Now Michael has two lives, one where his wife is alive and his son is dead, and the other where his son is alive and his wife is dead.

We see him with his wife Hannah (Laura Allen, Terriers) who is trying hard to accept and move on from the death of their son. At work, his partner Det. Freeman (Steve Harris, The Practice) is reassigned and Det. Vega (Wilmer Valderrama, That 70’s Show) is made his new partner. His superiors force Michael to see therapist Dr Lee (B.D. Wong, Law & Order: SVU). His new case has him trying to catch a serial killer who poses for security cameras. Back home he falls asleep next to his wife.

He wakes alone. He walks down the hallway of his home and greets his very alive son. In this life, his wife is dead. Freeman continues to work with him and Vega remains a patrolman. His superiors force him to see therapist Dr. Evans (Cherry Jones, 24). The case here is a kidnapped child.

The characters in the two worlds seem to be opposites: the wife versus the son, the inexperienced new partner versus the experienced partner, the gruff male shrink versus the sweet female shrink.

Unexplainably, the crimes connect as Michael finds clues in one life that leads to the solution of the crime in his other life.

Each therapist tries to convince him that his or her world is the real one and that he needs to accept the death of the loved one in his “dream” world.

Those who enjoy procedural TV drama should enjoy the double dose every week. Those who enjoy series with deeper mysteries running through the background will find much to speculate about.

Why did he crash? Why did they find alcohol in his bloodstream after the crash when he hadn’t had a drink that night? Which life is real? Does either world exist beyond Michael?

Why did both of his partners have life changing events happen to them, yet see those events as they related to Michael? When Michael woke and could not find his wife or son, why did he freak out?

Can Michael survive living two lives? Given a chance to live life with his wife and his son, Michael sees no reason to accept the death of either. Except his wife and son can’t move on and start a new life without Michael losing one of them.

Time will tell how long show creator Kyle Killen (Lone Star) and the writers can keep this premise interesting, but this episode is worth watching.

Michael, I completely agree with you that the key to a TV show’s success is the characters, which really amounts to a combination of writing, casting, and acting. I’m not so sure I would have cared about the great mysteries of Lost, for example,if I wasn’t so emotionally invested in Jack, Locke, Kate, Sawyer, Ben, and the rest of the bunch. The same is true for a show like The X-Files; once Mulder and Scully either left or became less involved in the stories, who really cared about the great mystery? I too was having trouble connecting to Alcatraz, and while I am still two episodes behind in my viewing, I thought the episode that aired three weeks ago, on the prison guard Guy Hastings, was quite good, because it connected the “great mystery” to the characters (Ray and Rebecca). Sam Neill’s highly mannered performance is something I can do without, but I’m not ready to give up on the show yet. I have watched the Awake pilot, and while I would never make a definitive judgment based on a single episode, I am very intrigued by the central mystery here. The question for me is whether I will become invested enough in these characters to care (especially since it means having to put up with Cherry Jones, whom I will never forgive for her thoroughly off-putting characterization of President Taylor in 24). This is just a personal reaction, but I find the casting of Jason Isaacs — Lucius Malfoy or not — to be a particularly curious one, as I really don’t see much charisma there. The involvement of EP Howard Gordon, whose background includes The X-Files, Buffy, Homeland, and 24, is, in my opinion, a very good thing. The fact that this show was created by Kyle Killen of Lone Star is pretty hilarious to me, as both shows focus on male characters living parallel lives, albeit for vastly different reasons — what could be the reason for this thematic obsession? Awake was ready to go for the fall, but NBC decided to give the 10 pm Thursday slot to Prime Suspect instead, which I think requires no further comment.

We definitely intend to try AWAKE. The problem with ALcatraz (well one of them) is, who are you supposed to care about other than Doc/Hurley? Sam Neill is not only off-putting in his acting, but the character is awful. Clearly he was one of the brutal guards in the past, he’s keeping plenty of secrets, etc.

They tell you nothing. Did all the prisoners come back at once or are they being sent back one at a time as they appear to us? How did the two doctors appear the same age in 1960 and today while Sam Neill has aged near 50 years? (And how did they go back and forth from then to now or vice versa?) Why is Neela (sorry, that’s how we think of her) still in a coma and will she ever wake up?

Also, everyone who has come back, other than the first guy who clearly did not belong in Alcatraz at all, is an incredibly vicious murderer. This does not make for good viewing. They give you zero hints of where they’ve been, how they got here, who sent them and what they told them to do, etc.

I don’t know how long they think they can hold an audience (which has already shrunk from 10 million to 6 million) but I’m guessing not much longer without some answers.

As David said, with LOST you were invested in the characters. Here you’re not.

Jeff, that audience drop for Alcatraz is no insignificant point. From what I read the show is dangerously close to not being renewed for a second season. I don’t know if you saw the Guy Hastings episode, but Hastings was a guard, not a criminal, and he is certainly not a vicious murderer. As I say above, I think that was a particularly strong episode. Also, the episode airing this week supposedly focuses on an inmate who was actually innocent of any crime. But your larger point — about how the answers are being revealed at a painfully slow pace — is I think something taken straight from the Lost playbook.

I should add that while Alcatraz can be extremely confusing, I’m pretty sure Neill’s character was not a prison guard, but rather one of the two cops who arrived at the prison in 1963 to discover that everyone was missing. I certainly concur that he is a man of many secrets, regardless.

I never watched LOST after the first two episodes. Although a few of characters may have been people I’d have liked to have spent time with, others were not. And even after two episodes it was way too clear to me that there was too much plot and too many goofy things going on, none of them interesting to me.

But to take FRINGE as something of a counterexample, I’m still watching the first season. The “Pattern” and whatever conspiracy is going on doesn’t interest me all that much. It’s Walter Bishop’s character that fascinates me. The actor who plays him was all but unknown in this country before the series started, but he’s terrific.

Peter and Olivia are also interesting, with stories (I assume) yet to be told about them. The overall story line may eventually go off the deep end, and if it does as far as I’m concerned, I will probably bail out on the show, but so far, so good.

Make that very good.

But to get back to the point that everyone’s been making, which I agree with, the keys to success in a series with a long complicated story line are the characters and how well the actors and writers make you want to spend time with them.

Steve, Walter Bishop is an amazing character! John Noble, the Australian actor who portrays him, may have been generally unknown to American audiences, but certainly not to Lord of the Rings fans, who will forever remember him as the whacked-out Denethor, steward of Gondor. I am also very impressed by Joshua Jackson’s performance in Fringe; to me the emotional anchor of that show is the father-son relationship between Walter and Peter. If you haven’t seen the episode “White Tulip” yet you are in for a real treat.

I seem to remember a recent interview with the showrunners of ALCATRAZ that said season one is about Tommy Madsen, and they plan to reveal all his secrets at the end of season one.

ALCATRAZ, as with FRINGE, can be thought of as a video book with each season a chapter with its own questions and answers but all coming together in a larger story. BABYLON 5 did it first and the best.

AWAKE may go a similar route. We may never know which life is real or if either are real, it will be the costs to the characters where the drama will hopefully come from.

Fringe is definitely one of our favorite shows, though I’m afraid they went way astray with the latest universe. Walter is a wonderful character but the absence of Peter from the early part of this season may prove fatal. The Walter-Peter relationship, even more than Peter-Olivia, is indeed (as David pointed out) the glue that holds it together and makes it such good viewing.

I’ll be very sad to see it go if these are indeed the final eight episodes coming up.

There have been a couple of good Alcatraz episodes but overall I’ve been disappointed so far. They really need to start revealing at least some of the secrets.

BuddyTV.com has interviews with Jason Isaacs and Kyle Killen and Howard Gordon about the direction the series is taking.

The first season will be about the accident. “…the price of needing to figure out what happened to him.” The understanding of what caused the accident may lead him closer to what he doesn’t want, to learn which universe is real.

Jason Isaacs and Cherry Jones are enough for me to tune in. Though it seems like it would’ve been a better movie than a TV series. We shall see.

I agree with Steve about FRINGE. Only Walter Bishop kept me coming back to the first season of that show. By the end of the season Peter and Astrid were growing on me too. Olivia never did it for me. When it took off into the corporate conspiracy storyline (a la ALIAS) and then veered into the alternate universe stories I no longer cared about anything.

Another unusual crime show I hoped would do well is GRIMM. For obvious reasons the blending of supernatural elements in a crime/mystery show greatly appealed to me. The first few episodes had a offbeat sense of humor that reminded me of the brilliantly weird episodes written by Darin Morgan of X FILES fame. Though I don’t think the lead actor is really any good at all, I do like the supporting cast especially Silas Weir Mitchell who has a quirky performance style, great lines and I wish the whole show had more of characters like him in it.

But I started to lose interest as the series progressed. It seemed like it was trying to turn into a werewolf show along the lines of what TRUE BLOOD is doing with vampires (minus all the kinky sex scenes). The pseudo-clever German neologisms that have “cute” literal translations (Blutbad = bloodbath, for example) stopped being funny and started to grate on me. And the evil creatures bent on world domination subplot ruined it for me. It started feeling too much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets The Night Stalker and it could’ve been truly weird and strange and fun with a variety of interesting plots based on the wealth of stories from the Grimm brothers and the legends of Old Europe. I doubt it’ll make it to another season.

J.F. I suspect FRINGE will end this season and GRIMM will survive, despite Fox trying to save FRINGE and NBC trying hard to screw up GRIMM (they really need to stop preempting GRIMM).

My reaction to FRINGE is opposite of yours, I hated the first season and loved the second and third season. The current season is ok, but often leaves me bored.

I haven’t tried GRIMM because I am not a fan of horror. NBC doesn’t have enough other success to toss away a possible success they have with GRIMM. If it was up to me I’d move it to Friday at 10pm and make it the scary horror series kids get to stay up late for because there is no school on Saturday. Turn it into a cult series such as FRINGE. It would be great counter-programming to Friday’s top rated scripted series BLUE BLOODS.

For what it’s worth, TV by the Numbers rates Fringe a tossup for another season and Grimm “certain to be renewed,” though the site’s record has been spotty over the years, particularly with respect to Fringe. I WISH Grimm felt like Buffy the Vampire Slayer to me, but I personally don’t think it has anywhere near Buffy’s wit, cleverness, character development,or emotional wallop. I like that Night Stalker analogy, but as ABC found out in 2005, it’s hard to make that show work without Darrin McGavin, though if anyone can do it, Johnny Depp can.

TV by the numbers is not one of my favorite websites. He oversimplifies the numbers. Ratings are numbers that content owners use to set ad rates. And any good salesman can spin any numbers in their favor. But why a TV series survives goes beyond the numbers.

With FRINGE, the problem goes beyond the numbers (though finishing fourth and losing to GRIMM does not help). The networks pay the series production company or studio a license fee. The more successful the series or the more costly the series is the higher the production company wants for the license fee. If the network can sell commercials to meet or surpass the fee, they make money. Each year the cost of talent alone rises for the series. This is why HOUSE is ending.

FRINGE is on a network that likes having at least one (SF) genre show. This year Fox has other shows that appeal to the FRINGE audience and to the advertisers who seek them. Who survives TOUCH, TERRA NOVA, ALCATRAZ or FRINGE? The audience is not big enough for that many of that type of show for all to survive, especially on the smaller schedule FOX has.

GRIMM is simpler. NBC has major disasters all over the schedule, weak 8pm lead in, weak 10pm shows, quality shows dying on Thursday, so GRIMM and Friday is the least of NBC’s worries.

As for AWAKE. Everything NBC has put in this time slot has gone done in flames. Quality means more here than numbers. If the media continues to cover it like the Thursday NBC comedy lineup, then all it has to do is better than PRIME SUSPECT and THE FIRM.

I dropped the show about two thirds through the second episode. I found the two world dramas too uncomfortable. Michael seems to be willing to let the two people he allegedly loves suffer so he can be happy. The wife’s reaction to the dead son’s mail meant nothing to him because he felt different. Caring and compassionate for Michael seems only to apply to himself.

I have found fans and critics’ reaction interesting. Seems one group loves the police stuff and hates the giant conspiracy, the other group loves the giant conspiracy and hates the police stuff.

Me, I can’t get beyond hating the selfish bastard of a lead character.

To those fans of AWAKE who might visit in the future, I feel your pain of the series end. This is actually the first year in my TV viewing life that all the shows I watch were renewed (four of them).

I never returned to the series but will watch the final episode and hope to be able to understand it.

I never wanted the Red or Green universe to be real. I did not want the world where both of Michael’s loved ones were dead to be real either. I was rooting for the universe where Michael was the dead one and his selfish refusal to let go of either his wife or son was a man who refused his own death.

The advantage of an arc series ending too soon is you can end it any way you wish.